Las Vegas Wranglers Mid-Season Review

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – Prior to the season opening, the Wranglers had put together a fantastic squad. The early reports of the number of play-making stars coming to Nevada to further their hockey careers on the Wrangler roster looked like one of the top contenders for the league trophy, the Kelly Cup. Now, at the mid-season, those predictions have been anything but wrong.   It is becoming clear the kind of team head coach Ryan Mougenel has on the ice since his team is currently filling the first place position in the Pacific Division with an 18-9-1-3 record. Offensively it has been a record setting season for the Wranglers.   The team nearly shattered the shots on goal record two consecutive nights, notching 57 and 54 in games against the Idaho Steelheads. In another game, forward Eric Lampe broke both the single game mark for goals and points in a 9-3 victory over Colorado.   That offense took a hit when the ECHLs leading goal scorer, Lampe, departed for Lake Erie of the AHL following a 4-1 victory over Ontario. With offensive powerhouses in the form of Lampe, Judd Blackwater, Adam Miller, and Peter MacArthur, the Wranglers are at the top of the ECHL in points through the mid-point. Complementing the forward lines are very effective defensive stalwarts in Barry Goers, captain Mike Madill and Jamie Fritsch. These combinations have been effective weapons on the ice, both offensive and defensive. They have contributed to the Wranglers having the third best penalty kill in the ECHL. Adding to this, Wranglers forwards are listed in nearly every “league leader” list that the ECHL compiles. Lampe is first in goals, shorthanded goals, and first-goals, and second in game winning goals.   Blackwater is sixteenth in goals, second in assists and shots-on-goal per game. In addition, three of the Wranglers players Lampe, Blackwater and Campbell, are listed among the ECHL top 20 scorers league-wide. This Wrangler team though is no stranger to adversity. They won six-of-nine following Peter MacArthur’s, the team assists leader, departure for Peoria and over the past month. They have seen a total of six starters called up to the AHL and while numerous faces feathered in and out of the Wrangler locker room. While that may prove to be a distraction for other teams, the Las Vegas Wranglers just keep on winning. Mougenel is pleased with the progress, but reserves the credit to the players. “I’d love to tell you that it’s coaching, but I think that when you have a group of guys who commit to each other and commit to playing the right way every night, I think you’re going to have success. That’s always a tough thing at our level and it’s a tough thing for coaches at this level to deal with an ever changing roster. I think that a couple of years ago I had a real tough time with it. I would, like most coaches, panic for about the first ten minutes. Where am I going to find the next defenseman? But yeah, it’s just one of those things, you become kind of acclimated to. The guys have done a great job of basically playing with just four [defensemen] for the last probably three or four weeks. We need to get healthy. I think that’s a big issue with our hockey club. We need to get healthy, we need these guys playing games and fill in the void,” said Coach Mougenel. Defensively, Las Vegas is as good as any Wrangler club that has preceded them over the past few seasons. Playing shorthanded on defense the last few weeks, the Wranglers remaining defensemen have really stepped up their game and helped the team towards continued success. Defensive players like Madill and Goers, who never fail to squeeze an attacking opposing forward and other players who are just starting to really find their groove in the Wranglers organization, everything on the back end is well taken care of. The Wranglers defense hit a snag when Fritsch was called up to Bridgeport of the AHL and Jeff May was injured by a puck in Utah. The defensive shortcoming forced the Wranglers to field only 4 D-men per game, causing Mougenel to play forwards Campbell and Huxley in temporary defensive rolls. The one constant throughout the Wranglers history has been the amazing goalie lineup. From Marc Magliarditi, to current NHLer Mike McKenna and others, the Wranglers have rarely in their nine seasons, been at a loss for a good goalkeeper. However, at the beginning of the current campaign, it looked like the Wranglers might be facing one of the rare goalie shortages. With Joe Fallon playing solid in net, back-up goalie Mitch O’Keefe was the victim of a unlucky bone spur that eventually cut a tendon in his arm. At one point, his comeback during the regular season was bleak at best. Fortunately, during O’Keefe’s absence, Fallon stood up and backed his team to a very respectable showing, only having an active duty Air Force serviceman as his emergency backup. With the acquisition and eventual moving of goalie David Brown to Quad City of the CHL, the Wranglers problems in net turned out to be only temporary. O’Keefe rejoined the lineup directly after Browns departure and has backstopped his share of successful nights since then. Currently, Fallon is fifth in the ECHL in goals against, third in wins and saves, all while holding first among goaltenders in minutes played.Even with all of this amazing success so far in the ECHL season, most Wranglers cannot seem to forget the epic breakdown that engulfed last season’s Wranglers. That club went from second in the league at one point to taking an early summer break after the second round of the playoffs. However, this current Wranglers squad, even with all of their early opposition, has the makings of a Kelly Cup champion. Only June will tell. Contact the writer at Joel.Hoopaugh@prohockeynews.com Photos by Glenn Harvey.